Thanks to friends and RSS feeds, I came across a few different articles over the weekend that all stayed with me. I wanted to blog about each of them, briefly, but now my thoughts about them seem connected so I thought I’d just lay them out together and see what you think. The common thread […]
The disclaimers and hedges can wait. I just feel like saying how much I like my job as SBJ’s mama. Here are six things I love about my job. 1. He loves me It’s really nice to work for someone who likes having you around. There’s nothing quite like hearing a heartfelt ‘Mama!’ from another […]
‘The Second Shift’ has persisted through the several decades that women have been working outside the home in large numbers. It’s the name authors Arlie Russell Hochschild and Anne Machung gave to the phenomenon of working women coming home and doing another whole shift of house-based work. Also known as the double burden, the problem […]
I first encountered Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty a few years ago with this striking video showing the (tenuous) relationship between a billboard photo of a woman and her face without the hours of work on her and her photograph. The neck-stretching is particularly astonishing. Dove’s recent addition to this series is doing the rounds […]
What do people need to know about postnatal depression? I have been asked to speak at a Mothers’ Day service at North Porirua Baptist Church. They are inviting parents from their community and want me to speak about PND. I’m going to tell some of my story, perhaps structured around some key headings: PND Surprises […]
I can’t remember if I first fell a bit in love with political activist and film-maker Michael Moore when he made Bowling for Columbine, a documentary polemic arguing for saner gun control in his home country of the United States. It was either then or when my friend Steven, who had lived in the US, […]
This is the third an occasional series on our experience of co-sleeping with our baby (and toddler, as he becomes later on!). You can see the series list here. Co-sleeping becomes a whole new thing when your baby gets mobile. I was so astounded by observing the phenomenon of sleep-crawling (SBJ also sleep-talks and sleep-dances. It’s […]
Playschool, Rainbow, Sesame Street: I could still sing you the theme songs. The Muppets. The Smurfs, though I was disdainful of the lack of female representation, even at six. The Flintstones and every other Hanna-Barbera cartoon ever made. Happy Days, Diff’rent Strokes, The Cosby Show, Benson, Charles in Charge, M*A*S*H, The Beverly Hillbillies, Hogan’s Heroes, […]
This is the second in an occasional series on our experience of co-sleeping with our baby (and toddler, as he becomes later on!). You can see the series list here. The most common question people have about co-sleeping may actually be about sex, but as I said in the comments to the first post in this series, […]
A good listener is never short of friends. Some people are naturals at this popular skill, and you might be lucky enough to know one or two. Plenty of us have to learn the skill of being a good listener, though the kind intention does go a long way, too. The headline ‘act’ for the Do […]